The Last Runaway

Content Warning: This section references slavery and racism.

Nineteenth-century Quakers, both in England and in the United States, were largely affiliated with the project of abolitionism. In The Last Runaway, Honor spends time in both communities; she was born and raised in England and immigrates to the United States as an adult, where she settles in Ohio, a hotbed of abolitionist activity. Still, Honor learns that what it means to be an abolitionist in England (where slavery had been abolished since 1834) is very different from what it means to be an abolitionist in 1850s Ohio, where she comes face-to-face with enslaved people and their lived experiences. In America, Honor learns, being an abolitionist requires work and self-sacrifice, a concept that not all members of her community embrace.

Honor’s life in Ohio begins shortly before the passing of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, which dramatically increased the powers of the 1793 Fugitive Slave Law. The new law rendered the federal government responsible for finding and remanding into slavery those who had escaped bondage and allowed “slave hunters” like Donovan to demand the aid of citizens in the work of recapturing escapees. Those who refused to comply (as Donovan is fond of reminding Honor and Jack) were subject to fines and imprisonment.